


figures of delight, drawn after you

by mercutioes



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Language of Flowers, Multi, sappy long-distance gays
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-08-26
Packaged: 2018-12-20 06:11:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11914863
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercutioes/pseuds/mercutioes
Summary: it's an old earth tradition. miss you always. -j





	figures of delight, drawn after you

**Author's Note:**

> it's kavi's birthday!!!! here's a birthday fic about these sappy, sappy kids in love!!!
> 
> title from shakespeare's sonnet 98
> 
> (it's the future, i assume they have ways to preserve flowers, let me have this)

_Pink Camellias (longing for you)_

Jamil is currently sitting in a dirty hotel room on Gemm, dossiers and case files strewn around her on the bed.  A knock comes at the door and Jamil startles, grabs her gun before answering.  There's no one there when she opens it, only a bouquet of flowers and a note sitting on the doorstep.  She establishes that the bundle is no threat before bringing it inside, opening the tiny envelope.

 _It's an old earth tradition_ , it reads.  _Miss you always. -J_

Jamil smiles to herself, small and fond, and opens up a video call back to Jace on Counterweight.

 

_Sweet Pea (good-bye, departure, blissful pleasure)_

Addax wakes up slowly for once, muscles aching and more rested than he’s felt in a while.  He stretches, rolls over to find the other side of the bed empty.  His stomach drops – he knew that Jace had to slip out early but he’s disappointed despite himself.  He always is, loves nothing more than waking up with Jace and Jamil still pressed up against him, warm and content.  He sits up, runs a hand through his hair before noticing Jace’s parting gift.

Sitting bundled on the pillow is a sprig of delicate pink flowers, ruffled and sweet-smelling.  Addax laughs to himself – Jace might be a sappy romantic, but Addax falls for it every single time.  He snaps a quick picture of himself with the flowers, captions it _safe travels_ , and sends it to Jace.

 

_Nasturtium (conquest, victory in battle)_

Jamil double checks, triple checks her gear, ticking off items in her mental list, trying desperately not to let her encroaching panic take over.  This mission is important, too important to fuck up by forgetting something stupid like her laser cutter or backup communicator or –

Tucked into the corner of her bag is a singular red-orange flower, small and delicate with five crinkled petals.  There’s a note with it, narrow and curled.  _Good luck, come home safe. – A_.

The corner of Jamil’s mouth turns up.  She tucks the flower into a pocket on the hip of her tactical jumpsuit, takes a steadying breath, and heads out to the shuttle.

 

_Daffodils (the sun is always shining when i’m with you)_

Jace has been on Ionias for three weeks and he’s pretty sure that he’ll never feel warm again.  He’s so fucking _sick_ of gray and white and steel and snow, tired of feeling trapped by the icy environment.  His connection isn’t good enough to video call, or even _voice_ call, so he’s stuck texting Jamil and Addax during the hours of pointless stakeouts on the planet’s face.

Finally, _finally,_ he gets the all-clear to retreat back to the Evening ship above the planet’s surface.  He rendezvouses with the shuttle in the dead of night, peels off his exosuit with tired relief as soon as he’s inside.  He collapses into the flight seat, rubbing his frigid hands together.

“Before we go,” says the pilot, a younger agent whose name Jace can’t remember, “Agent Quartz-Noble sent you these.”  They toss a small bundle of yellow flowers back to Jace, tied hastily with twine.

Jace feels the tips of his ears heat for the first time in ages.

 

_Azaleas (take care of yourself for me)_

Addax hasn’t slept in seventy-two hours.  The Rapid Evening has pills for that, chemicals that shut down the need for sleep, and Addax has been popping them gratefully, so close to a breakthrough on this conspiracy on Vox.

He spares a glance for his personal interface, sees that Jamil and Jace have been trying to reach him, and he so desperately wants to take their calls but he knows that if he does he’ll lose his momentum on this and it’s _too important to lose now –_

A huge, blaring message covers all of his screens, red and blinking and obnoxious: _CHECK YOUR DOORSTEP_.  Addax sighs, scrubs his hands over his eyes – this is obviously Jamil’s handiwork.  But he follows the instruction, goes to check outside his door and finds a huge bouquet of colorful flowers in pinks and purples and reds and whites.  It takes his exhausted brain a minute to comprehend what he’s seeing, but he laughs when he gets it, gathers them up and heads inside, types up a message to Jamil.

 _Okay, I get it, I’m going to bed._ He hits send, hesitates before sending another message.  _I love you. Thanks._

_Primrose (i can’t live without you)_

Being in the hospital sucks.  It sucks even _more_ when both of your partners are halfway across the star sector, unable to come visit you and make you soup or whatever partners do when you’re laid up with a broken leg and a fractured rib.

Jace spends his time trying to distract himself with busy work, organizing and re-organizing his case files and notes and trying to ignore the pressing loneliness of this sterile room he’s confined in.  Sometime during day three, a nurse comes in holding a sprig of delicate yellow blossoms.

“Agent Dawn told me to give you these,” they say before turning to leave.  “I have no idea how he got them here.”

Jace takes them, traces over the soft petals with tired fingertips.  He feels a slow smile spread across his face.  Addax always calls him a romantic, but Jace knows he’s not the only one.

 

_Viscaria (will you dance with me?)_

By design, the Rapid Evening tries not to have too many of its agents in one place at the same time – it’s too much of a liability.  But every once in a while, one of them manages to pull enough strings to get them all assigned to the same mission.

Now, Addax and Jamil are standing together on the fringes of a traditional-style Terran ballroom, opulent and rich.  Nominally, they’re meant to be infiltrating the party.  In truth, it’s an excuse to dress up and spend time together, all three of them.

Jamil smooths her sparkling lavender gown for the eighteenth time this evening.  The fabric was expertly selected to complement Addax’s dark plum tuxedo and hair, which has gone from perfectly coiffed to rumpled from the myriad times he’s run nervous hands through it since they got here.  He’s as impatient as she is, scanning the crowds for a glimpse of –

Someone clears their throat behind them, and both Jamil and Addax whirl around to see Jace, resplendent in a matching suit, deep purple and lovely, dark hair pulled back and shiny and a grin on his lips.  He carries two delicate purple flowers in his hand, five-petaled with a dark center.  He steps to Addax, kisses him softly and tucks a flower into his lapel before moving to Jamil.  His kiss is careful, wary of smearing her lipstick, and with delicate fingers he places the other flower behind her ear to match.

“Wanna dance?” he asks, extending his hands to both of them.  His grin is infectious and Jamil shares a look with Addax, reveling in the _rightness_ of being here all together.  She places her hand in Jace’s and Addax does the same, and then Jace is sweeping them out onto the dance floor in a clumsy, enthusiastic spin, and Jamil is laughing harder than she has in months.  They must look ridiculous, three in purple whirling in the center of the ballroom, but holding hands with the two of them as they dance is a special kind of grace all on its own.

**Author's Note:**

> "Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell  
> Of different flow'rs in odor and in hue,  
> Could make me any summer’s story tell,  
> Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew.  
> Nor did I wonder at the lily’s white,  
> Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;  
> They were but sweet, but figures of delight,  
> Drawn after you, you pattern of all those."


End file.
